I earned $200 in less than an hour the other day, without removing any of my clothes. A bank gave me the money (or will, a few months from now) in exchange for opening a business checking account.<\/p>\n
Why would a bank or a credit union<\/a> give away that kind of money? To get people through the doors.<\/p>\n Once you’re there, bank officials hope you’ll take advantage of their other services, making you a loyal and profitable customer. Not to make that $200 sound like a gateway drug, but once a bank has you chances are you’ll be hooked. (Not always, though. More on that later.)<\/p>\n After all, that checking account is probably connected to a debit card. The customer might want a credit card, too. Down the road he might be in the market to finance a car, take out a small-business loan or apply for a mortgage.<\/p>\n If you’ve had just about enough of your current bank’s sneaky fees and indifferent service, this is a golden opportunity: Other banks will pay you to dance with them!<\/strong><\/p>\n And if you prefer to dance with those what already brung you? Open a new account anyway, for the quick profit and\/or to designate a dream. (More on that later, too.)<\/p>\n Naturally the banks don’t want you to open accounts just to get free fundage. Supermarkets don’t want you to buy just the loss leaders, either. But that’s the risk businesses take when they offer incentives. It would be cheaper for banks to offer toasters, the way they did in the old days, but most of us would rather have the cash.<\/p>\n I found one such offer in a \u201cstudent survival kit\u201d coupon book while attending the University of Washington. You may see posters at the bank you already use, walk by a sign at your local credit union, or even hear a radio or TV ad. Or do it the 21st-century way, by looking for bank promotions online<\/a>.<\/p>\n Note: Some banks will check your credit report when you open an account, which is \u201cusually a 5-point ding,\u201d according to MSN Money columnist Liz Pulliam Weston, author of \u201cYour Credit Score: How to Improve the 3-Digit Number That Shapes Your Financial Future<\/a>.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Each bank has a different set of conditions. You may have to deposit at least $100, or leave the account open for at least six months before your bonus comes through. You could be required to set up direct deposit, or to complete a certain number of transactions in a set time period.<\/p>\n This can be fairly easy to do. For example, the online checking account necessitated making several debit-card purchases. I used the card to buy a few small, cheap and necessary grocery items.<\/p>\n The Academy Award for \u201cBest Gaming of the System\u201d goes to an unknown frugalist posting at TipHero.com<\/a>. He or she opened a $25 checking account to get a $50 supermarket gift card. Next the bank sweetened the deal: Write four checks and get another $25. So the account holder wrote four $1 checks \u2014 for cash.<\/p>\n Suppose you don’t have an extra $100 lying around loose. (Hi there, recent grads with huge student loans!) See if you can borrow from a relative or friend, with a written promise that once the bank makes good you’ll withdraw the original funds. Or just get creative about scraping together a few dollars here and there; for ideas, see my previous GRS column, \u201cThink you can’t afford an emergency fund? Think again!<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n In the past four years I’ve opened four other accounts just to get the bonuses:<\/p>\n See a pattern here? The checking account is important to banks because it encourages you to set up direct deposit and online bill-pay<\/a>.<\/p>\n Be very clear on the terms and conditions before you agree to the account. Is that free checking? Must you keep a minimum balance? Will you have to pay for a box of checks? (Those are cheaper if you buy them from check-printing companies, and cheaper still if you access such a company through a cash-back shopping site<\/a> such as Mr. Rebates<\/a> or Fat Wallet. That is, assuming you still write checks.)<\/p>\n Pay attention to that fine print or your bonus could drip right out of the account \u2014 and maybe even take some of your hard-earned funds with it. Just ask my boss: J.D. admitted in print to having paid about $1,500 in fees over the years for a simple checking account. (Of course, he did get a free Frisbee.)<\/p>\n \u201cTake advantage of the offer while making sure it isn’t costing you money,\u201d says Todd Sandler, of head of product strategy for ING Direct.<\/p>\n My online bank account<\/a> is still open but holds less than $20. If the bank nagged me to close it I guess I would. For now, it just sits there.<\/p>\n Money would still be sitting in one of those national-bank accounts if the institution hadn’t decided it would assess fees for accounts with (relatively) low balances. This announcement, incidentally, was on the back of the monthly statement. Sneaky bastards!<\/p>\n A small part of me wanted to keep that account open in case I ever move back to Alaska. But about seven-eighths of me was feeling uber-stressed: I was up to my hairline in deadline and unable to handle one more curveball. The last time that happened I wound up paying for ringtones I didn’t order<\/a>, so I just closed the account.<\/p>\n Relax: Credit scores typically aren’t affected by bank account closures, according to Weston \u2014 unless, of course, the account was closed by the bank because you hung a lot of bad paper.<\/p>\n I closed the credit union account after my daughter’s DIY nuptials, because the closest branch was not convenient for making deposits. Which brings me to my list of potential drawbacks:<\/strong><\/p>\n Maybe you’ll use the new financial institution for everyday bill-paying. But you could also designate the account, and its bonus bucks, for a specific goal:<\/p>\n If you’re funding a dream, vow to beef up the account even if it’s $5 at a time. I did that, depositing into my credit-union account the proceeds from mystery shopping<\/a>, manufacturer’s rebates and the occasional Craigslist sale<\/a>. It wasn’t much \u2014 that was a tough couple of years<\/a> \u2014 but as I recall I set aside a few hundred bucks. Every little bit helped, given that the bride was then on disability and the groom got laid off shortly before the wedding.<\/p>\n Of those four extra accounts, two are now closed and the online one might as well be. But the fourth one is not only active, but hopeful. It’s my own big-dreams fund: I call the account \u201cHome\u201d and have been squirreling away any extra money I can.<\/p>\n Note: You will have to pay income tax on the \u201cfree\u201d money the bank gave you. But how else could somebody like me make $200 in an hour? Legally, I mean.<\/em><\/p>\n So I’ll pay my taxes with a smile, because what’s left is mine to keep. Yours too, if you start saving now. Bonus: You get to keep your clothes on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I earned $200 in less than an hour the other day, without removing any of my clothes. A bank gave me the money (or will, a few months from now) in exchange for opening a business checking account.<\/p>\n<\/span>Getting Started<\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/span>Dodging the $1,500 Frisbee<\/span><\/h2>\n
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<\/span>What’s the Catch?<\/span><\/h2>\n
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<\/span>Let the Bank Buy the Drinks?<\/span><\/h2>\n
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